Once upon a time there was an evening when Europe, for a few hours, acted as if it really were a continent of togetherness. Glitter, off-key notes, kitschy ballads, completely over-the-top stage shows and that wonderfully absurd points allocation in which half of Europe collectively lost its mind. The Eurovision Song Contest was never perfect. But that was precisely its greatness.
And now? Now we apparently can’t even listen to three minutes of music without immediately opening geopolitical fronts.
Of course the world is complicated. Of course wars are real. Of course one may discuss Israel, Gaza, Russia or international double standards. All that belongs to an open society. But does it really have to be that even the last European TV evening where people could laugh, celebrate and be outraged about questionable dance choreographies together becomes an ideological battleground?
By now the ESC looks like a cross between the UN Security Council and permanent Twitter outrage with a fog machine.
People used to ask: “Who will win?”
Today they ask: “Who boycotts whom?”
People used to argue about musical taste.
Today it’s about degrees of moral purity.
And of course the digital inquisition speaks up immediately. Whoever still wants to watch the contest becomes suspect. Whoever wants to separate music from politics is suddenly considered naive or heartless. As if every TV viewer had to pass a foreign-policy ideological test before switching on.
Yet the real tragedy is different: Europe is increasingly losing the ability to tolerate unpolitical spaces at all.
Everything must be a stance. Everything must be a symbol. Everything must become a battleground. Even a totally over-the-top music contest with wind machines, pyrotechnics and men in silver latex suits is now treated as if the moral future of humanity depended on it.
Perhaps therein lies the real problem of our time: we have forgotten that culture is sometimes allowed to simply connect — without being constantly judged in tribunal-like fashion.
Because the ESC was always strongest when people from completely different countries at least for one evening celebrated the same nonsense together. Greeks stood next to Norwegians, Israelis next to Spaniards, Ukrainians next to Britons — and for a few hours it didn’t matter which government they had or which conflict was dominating the headlines.
That was the magic.
And maybe it’s even arrogant to believe that people must be deprived of this small remainder of shared lightness in order to be morally consistent.
Because hand on heart: the world will not become more peaceful because Iceland no longer awards twelve points.
In the end what remains is a bitter impression. Not because politics has suddenly arrived at the Eurovision — it was always there. But because now even the last places where people could simply be human together are disappearing.
Perhaps we should therefore allow ourselves an almost old-fashioned question again:
Can’t you leave our music alone for once?